Nature's Nobility
by herry
Summary: At the same time as four very popular boys attended school, there still were a lot of people there. This is the story of one of them. As canon as I possibly could make it. Find a factmistake, I dare you! Yes, I know the first chapter is extremely boring.
1. Home Life and Social Habits

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Sad, isn't it?

_Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles_

The summer had been progressing slowly in West Bretton, and it felt even worse for Amelia Palio, who had to spend most of the time with her father and sister. The Palio family was a very odd one indeed. Mrs Palio, a young but rather plain woman of 34, had moved to London a few years earlier, where she no longer was Mrs Palio, but Miss Charis. There she worked in Leavenworth's Second Hand, a very peculiar curiosity shop in Diagon Alley. Mr Palio, on the other hand had for some very bizarre reason given up on magic, though he came from a long line of pure-blood wizards. Though it may not have been the most outstanding of families, at least it was pure. Amelia had actually never bothered to ask her father why things were as they were, mostly because she wasn't all that fond of her dad, and greatly preferred to sit alone in her room with some of the very obscure books her mother sent her almost once a week. She had a fain idea that it might have something to do with the fact that he had been in school together with the man now known as Lord Voldemort. Anyhow, he was now the economy manager of a publishing company and had resigned from the magical world.

Amelia's younger sister, Fawn, had got to be a very torn child in Amelia's opinion. She very rarely met her mother, as Mr Palio thought it best that the child suffered as little exposure to magic as possible before they knew if she was a witch. Amelia thought all that very stupid, as both the parents were pure-blood witch and wizard. Mr Palio's parents thought that this was just something he'd grow out of, and tried to ignore it with all their might. Unfortunately, they never came to visit anymore, mostly because Mr Palio had told them not to. They often wrote to their grandchildren, but Mr Palio forbid Amelia to show any of the letters for Fawn, or at least not tell her how they'd arrived.

So once a year, Amelia Palio went from total isolation from the magical world to living in Diagon Alley with her mother for the last few days before the school started. Yes, it was a very unfair way to divide the custody, but Mr Palio thought that all the time she spent in school was exposure to magic and therefore on her mother's watch, so he demanded most of the summer's break. It was quite a challenge to adapt to the changes, as they only lasted for a few days. But thankfully, this was her last day in West Bretton, and after dinner, she'd go to her mother's by Floo Powder. Despite Mr Palio's contempt of magic, his grate was still connected to the Floo Network. Mostly because his daughters that way would have quite an easy journey to Diagon Alley, but also because he wanted to be able to yell at their mother face to face for sending books of a more questionable nature to Amelia.

"Dinner's ready!" called Mr Palio from the kitchen and Amelia herd the quick feet of her sister run out from the room next to hers and out to the dining room.

She put down Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration, got up from her now neatly made bed and walked out to the dining room, where the dinner was on the table. Her father didn't seem to find it any moment to celebrate, that she was leaving for almost a year, and the meal prepared was mashed potatoes and meat balls. For a moment she wondered about what tactic he was playing at, but he soon gave himself away.

"Fawn, could you pass the mash?"

He was clearly pretending that she wasn't leaving at all, and that this was just another day. He was actually not even looking at his eldest daughter.

"Why is Meli packing?" asked Fawn in that very well-tried 'watcha doing' voice only an eight year old girl could muster up.

Amelia stopped a piece of meatball half an inch from her open mouth. For one, she hated that name, which, thankfully, only Fawn used. Second, now her father could no longer ignore the fact that one of his daughters were leaving. He would also have to talk about magic; something he only did with the expression of someone who had jut spilt something over their best clothes.

"She's going back to school," he answered awkwardly and cleared his throat.

"To Hogwarts?" asked Fawn in a very determined voice.

Amelia put her fork down on her plate, prepared to bolt if needed. But Mr Palio seemed to remain calm, if you didn't count the muscles twitching in his jaw when he wasn't speaking.

"Yes, to Hogwarts," he said mildly.

"I want to go too!" whined Fawn and Amelia knew that this was her cue. She scrambled up from her seat and left the table without having even tasted the food, and almost ran back to her room, where she felt that she desperately needed to pack.

Through the closed door she could hear Mr Palio yell and scream at Fawn, who Amelia doubted knew what she had done wrong. And then it all went quiet after two doors were slammed.

So Amelia went back to carefully packing all her things, not only for the brief visit with her mother, but also for school, as she probably wouldn't open her trunk when she was there. It felt like she had been packing for two weeks, waiting for this day, but she had a surprising amount of things left. Her robes, which weren't allowed to hang and dry outside ("What if the neighbours were to see it?") and diverse spell-books, which she hadn't gotten around to packing, as she always thought that she might feel like reading about this and that one of these days. Bottles of ink, quills and pieces of parchment were spread around the room, and she only swiftly packed down the things that might actually be to some use. That didn't not include the large peacock quill Mrs Leavenworth had bought her for Christmas last year, nor the very impractical inkbottle that sprouted legs to be able to run and always be no more than five and a half inches from the quill currently used.

Much later that night, when she woke up after falling asleep during a particularly tedious bit of Novel Divination, she brought her trunk to the fire-place after some fumbling around with her father's golf-trolley.

She knelt down by the hearth and lit a match, which she threw in between the cinders. Before it went out, which was very quickly, she threw a pinch of Floo Powder at it, and large, green flames erupted from the small match.

"Diagon Alley 27," she spoke clearly and stuck her head between the flames.

There was a sudden twirling and it felt like her head had been ripped off her body. Ash was swirling around and almost blocked the view entirely. When the ash cleared, she could see a room. To her it was immediately recognisable as the kitchen above the odd second hand shop, and she saw her mother sit on one of the mismatched chairs with a cup of tea and skimming through a copy of Witch Weekly. On the stove behind her was a small pot, which was stirring itself with a tree ladle. Much of the apartment and kitchen was just as clustered with strange objects as the shop below, and a peculiar red box was blocking half the vision out from the fire-place.

"Mum!" she called out to catch her mother's attention, as she didn't seem to have noticed her daughter's head in the fire.

Miss Charis jumped and looked around, dropping her magazine.

"Oh, I didn't think you'd come this late, so we assumed you'd come tomorrow!" she said and got up from her seat. She sent the box flying with her wand and it landed with a crash somewhere out of sight.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but dad had a row with Fawn," said Amelia and looked down.

"But don't you worry. The dinner's one the stove," she said with a wide smile. "Where are the rest of you and your things?"

"It's right here," said Amelia and jerked her head towards her body, which was still in West Bretton.

"Come right over, honey," she said and moved some chairs out of the way so that Amelia could land freely.

Amelia pushed her trunk through and then crawled through, finding herself on all fours in the kitchen a very long way from where she had been just seconds earlier.

She had always felt more at home in the apartment above the store, with her mother and the Leavenworth's, who not surprisingly owned the shop. They were very good friends of the family, and Miss Charis had been in school with Mrs Leavenworth. Her uncle, Razvan owned a very suspicious shop down in Knockturn Alley, where Amelia often went to visit. In the Palio family, as well as the Charis family, the line between regular and black magic was very blurry, and many times, Amelia even doubted its existence. It was mainly because both the families had been involved in many iffy affairs during the centuries. The Charis family had mostly been in Slytherin, with a few exceptions who landed themselves in Ravenclaw, like both Amelia and her mother. That Razvan had been in Slytherin was however something that became very clear about half a minute after you had met him. In the Palio family it had been the other way around, and most people were in Ravenclaw, with a few exceptions that landed themselves in Slytherin, and among those were her father. Most of their friends were from one of those houses as well, and during the years they had developed certain arrogance towards Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, with the base that those two houses didn't actually take anything to be in. Everyone was brave sometime in their lives, and almost everyone somehow fit in the description of loyal. Not everyone, however, could brag with wits or great ambition. Ravenclaw and Slytherin were also mainly pure-bloods, compared to the trash in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. And blood mattered, no matter what the others said. The birth-rate for Ravenclaw in particular, had, unfortunately, lowered drastically during the 60's.

"Alana, I-" said a voice, and Amelia turned around to see Mrs Leavenworth dressed in a very oddly cut set of robes. "Amelia!" she exclaimed merrily. "Thomas, get down over here!"

Mr Leavenworth was a very tall and very scrawny man with huge hands and brownish grey hair. He couldn't possibly be over forty-five, but his hair had always had the same mousy colour. His wife, who wasn't very tall at all, looked small in comparison. He smiled through his goatee when he saw her, which lit up his face and made him look several years younger.

"You sit down," said Mrs Leavenworth and nodded towards the chairs around the table. "I'll take care of your luggage. _Locomotor_."

She pointed her wand to Amelia's trunk and it floated up in the air just in front of her. This way, she walked up the stairs to the second floor, where there only was Amelia who had her room.

"So, Amelia," said Mr Leavenworth and took a seat next to her. "How was your stay in West Bretton?"

"Not much," she answered frankly.

"Oh well, you're here now and let's just hope you'll have a better time here!" he said shortly. He wasn't the type of man who liked easy small-talk, and when he spoke it was because he had something to say. "The Weasley's are coming for tea tomorrow. They're bringing their new son. What's his name? Peter? Paul?"

"Percy," corrected Miss Charis absentminded without lifting her eyes from Witch Weekly.

"If you don't mind, I'll be off to bed now," said Amelia when Mrs Leavenworth came back and sat down as well. She didn't want to be cross-examined about the year's most boring weeks, and she was quite tired as well.

"You don't want any food?" asked Miss Charis and looked almost hurt.

"No, I'm not hungry," lied Amelia. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Sleep tight, darling," said her mother, who now again was absorbed by an article, which seemed to be about a potion that prevented one's hair from ever grow grey.

Amelia walked up the narrow staircase to the second floor. Hers was the only room there, but there was also a large closet, which she guessed contained a boggart. She hadn't gotten around to tell anyone about it, or to kill it, but she liked hearing it thrash about in there during the nights.

Her room had two windows; one overlooking Diagon Alley, and the other one the roofs of the houses that parted Diagon and Knockturn Alley. If you stood on your toes and tilted your head to the left, you could actually make out the window of the store her uncle owned. There wasn't a lot of furniture, just a bed, a bookshelf and a large velvet armchair with small, yellow stains all over. The bookshelf covered most of one of the walls, and it in turn was covered with unusual books she had found in the shop below. Books no-one would really see the value of like she did. Titles among these were Fools and Their Follies, or the extremely large Stories of Simpletons, but also a few books which had actually proved to be quite useful and informative, in spite of their aged language and their approach which was from Dark Magic, such as The Vampire: His Kith and Kin, or just old school-books from when her mother or grandmother had been to school, like Innovative Charms.

She walked up to the window, where a small candle was burning, and opened it. Carefully, she climbed up on the windowsill and leaned to the left to get a good view of Razvan's place. The lights were on in the flat above. She made a mental note to go and visit him tomorrow, not only to see her uncle, but also to get her cat, Bob, which he had been taking care of during the summer. With this thought still in her head, she closed the window, got undressed and went to bed.


	2. Notable Magical Names in our Time

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. It's sad, isn't it?

_Notable Magical Names of Our Time_

Amelia didn't have to be outside long to realise that this was the time to be in Diagon Alley. Almost everywhere she looked she saw people from Hogwarts. She hadn't been out for more than five minutes before she one of the Slytherin Chasers, Gibbon, looking in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, but she'd never talked to him before and chose to ignore him. Anyway, he seemed to be too entranced by the new Shooting Star to be within the range of human contact.

"Palio! Oi, Palio!" shouted someone over the masses ahead, but all she could see was a hand waving over the heads of the others. It didn't take long until she saw who it belonged to: Sirius Black, with Peter Pettigrew faithfully in his heels.

She sighed and tried hard not to grit her teeth. It wasn't that she had anything real against him, or any of his obnoxious little friends, they were really, really… obnoxious. All right, so she thought some of their jokes were funny, but she knew that she was dangerously close to the edge of being on the receiving end of them. She and Black were also distant relatives through marriage, but who wasn't when you wanted to keep your family pure?

"Hey," she said mildly without any real emotion in her face. She didn't slow her pace, and kept walking towards Knockturn Alley with determined steps.

"Buying last of your stuff as well?" he asked and decided to follow her, even though she was walking the opposite direction.

"No, well, yes, but I'm staying until we star," she answered. "I came yesterday."

"Groovy. So where are you going now?"

"I'm going to visit Razvan," she said and couldn't help smiling at Pettigrew who almost shivered at the name. "How you got in Gryffindor is beyond me…" she muttered.

"Hey, lay off him!" scowled Black, suddenly very protective. "Anywho, I'll tag along. He'll wonder what the hell I'm doing there…"

"What do you mean?"

"Ran away from home three weeks ago, you know," he said proudly and seemed to be expecting applause. Needless to say, he didn't get any.

"That's really stupid," was all Amelia said. "How the hell are you going to manage now?"

"And I'm technically no longer my mother's son."

"So you were kicked out?"

"No, I _ran away_!"

"So where are you staying now?"

"With Snivelly. Seriously, where do you think I'm staying? With James of course!" he laughed, and elbowed Pettigrew to laugh with him.

"Oh dear god…" groaned Amelia, unable to help herself. They were now living under the same roof every day of the year?

They had just turned onto Knockturn Alley, and much to Amelia's surprise, Pettigrew hadn't scampered yet. Maybe he was braver than she thought… They walked by Borgin and Burke's and a book-shop selling the most bizarre books imaginable, such as a book entirely devoted to the diverse results of the Cruciatus Curse, and a little too graphic book about the sexual habits of Krakens. It sold pretty much every book Flourish and Blotts had ever rejected for one reason or another.

Razvan's shop lay in a narrow alley leading to a dead end. The door had no text, and there were no windows, which meant you had to know exactly where it was to even notice it. Even Black the Brave seemed a little shaken.

"You're quite the pride of Gryffindor, aren't you, boys?" said Amelia and Sirius laughed coldly.

When Amelia opened the door, the three of them were met with a strong, unidentifiable smell the moment they stepped over the threshold. Her uncle was rummaging through the many small boxes, which stood neatly on shelves behind the counter. There was where he kept the most dangerous and expensive things. Unnervingly enough, it seemed as though these boxes, all identical, had started to spread out of the shop.

"Amelia!" he exclaimed when he saw his niece and hurried around the counter.

He looked the way he had always looked, and ten years older than his 28. He had long black hair which dragged his face down in a very unflattering way, and it also made the rings around his eyes look even darker. But still, his lips were almost always curled in some sort of sadistically twisted grin, which made him look rather dangerous. It was the kind of face that effectively warned off any shop-lifter.

"Razvan," said Black coolly and took a deep breath.

Razvan looked from Black to Amelia, who gave him an apologising smile.

"Your mother isn't happy with you," he stated and looked darkly as Black. It was about this time that Pettigrew bolted.

"I think I got that when she charmed three swords to chase me out," said Black. Amelia was a little impressed that he managed to stand his ground with Razvan in his mood. Braver men than him would have crumbled long ago.

"Get out," growled Razvan dangerously.

"I… - What?" he stuttered and took a step backwards as Razvan took one towards him.

"Get out," barked Razvan and threw his left arm out in a very violent gesture to show him the door.

All colour vanished from Black's face. His breath seemed to have been caught in his throat, and Amelia first thought that he was scared by Razvan's outburst. But then she saw that he wasn't looking at his face, but his eyes were locked on something on Razvan's forearm. Amelia followed his gaze, and her eyes easily spotted the black Dark Mark on Razvan's pale, scarred arm.

The moment Black had gotten his senses back, he threw a glance deeply loathing glance at Amelia, and then calmly walked out the door without turning his back to Razvan. Amelia didn't dare to move before the door had shut.

"When did you do that?" she asked eagerly and realised that there was nothing but awe in her voice. She walked up to him and jerked his arm closer. She had never seen it for real like this before.

"A few weeks ago," said Razvan like it wasn't a very big deal.

"Did it hurt? Have you met Him? Who else are in?" asked Amelia eagerly.

"I'm not going to answer any of that," said Razvan, but didn't stop her from tracing the lines of it with her fingertips.

She stared intently at it for a while, then looked up at Razvan and saw that he was watching her with an amused smile. Unfortunately, it didn't very much look like a smile, it actually seemed to be causing him intense pain, but some people just shouldn't be happy.

"Why won't you answer?" she inevitably asked when they'd gotten over the slightly awkward moment.

"Because you don't need to know," said Razvan and covered his arm up.

"Oh, come on! You sound like mum!" she said and made a grab for his wrist, but he turned away.

"You don't need to know if it hurt, or if I med Him!" he said and took a step backwards.

"Yes, I do!" pleaded Amelia.

"Don't!" he suddenly barked and almost pushed her away, holding his arm pressed to his chest.

"I'm sorry…" she muttered and jumped up on the counter casually.

Razvan took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, collecting himself.

"You don't need to know, because you will never join," he said with an almost pedagogical voice.

Amelia felt the air run out of her, but she didn't break the eye-contact. How did he know exactly what she had been thinking? She eyed him suspiciously.

"How do you know if I'm going to join or not?"

"I'm not going to allow you to join!"

"What!" said Amelia and almost laughed. She had two parents who already told her what to do, and she loved Razvan because he was an adult who didn't tell her what to do. She also loved him because he had a lot of funky dark arts things as well, but that was beside the point.

"I'm not going to see you become a Death Eater," he said, and Amelia realised that this was the first time ever she had heard him use that word. It sounded so tempting right from his lips, so mysterious and dangerous; Amelia's definition of tempting.

"I don't really think you are in the position to tell me not to become a Death Eater!" she said and folded her arms.

"If I'm not, who is?" asked Razvan very seriously.

Even though she didn't want to, she saw his point.

"You regret it?" she asked instead.

"No," said Razvan calmly. "But I wouldn't wish you to see what I've seen."

"You've been in for a few weeks! How bad could it be?"

He didn't need to answer. The way he looked at her told her everything she needed to know, but what really made her uncomfortable, was that no matter how serious he looked, there wasn't the slightest sign of regret in his eyes.

The moment was interrupted by the sound of the door opening, and Razvan twirled around quickly to see who it was.

In came none other than Lucius Malfoy. Suddenly, Amelia didn't think about any of Razvan's plans, and turned and smiled at him. He was six years older than her, which made him 22. He'd started his seventh year at Hogwarts when Amelia had started, but now it didn't really feel like it was such an age-difference anymore. From her view of things, he was irresistible. He was young, handsome, and had lots of money he didn't need with a name like his.

"Razvan, Charis," he acknowledged when he came in. He had for as long as she could remember called her by her mother's last name instead of Palio, and she had a faint idea that it had something to do with how he utterly ignored Mr Palio's existence.

His business was quite obviously with Razvan; as not only did he hardly notice Amelia, but he was a very close friend to Razvan, who had taken him in as Lucius in turn had taken Severus Snape under his wing.

Razvan smiled his tired smile and went around the counter to greet his friend with a hug. Amelia had to say it looked rather strange with Razvan with his old, shagged out appearance being greeted that warmly by Malfoy, in his very expensive and very proper clothes and general image. But for once, he didn't snarl when someone as shabby-looking as Razvan approached him, he smiled widely and hugged him back very firmly.

"Amelia, could you please leave us alone for a while?" he asked and turned to Amelia, who quite insulted gave a short huff before withdrawing to the small back room behind a dark brown curtain.

Through a small hole in the fabric she could see Malfoy and Razvan's back, and how they both gestured as they talked quickly with hushed voices. She knew that Malfoy also was a Death Eater, he had been it for a while and it hadn't really surprised anyone, so she assumed she had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about, especially when she saw how Malfoy pulled up the sleeve of his robe and showed the back mark against his pale, flawless skin. It looked so very different from Razvan's, as the arms were so different; as the persons were so different.

Giving up her attempt to eavesdrop, she looked around for somewhere to sit, and found a small stool with some very suspect-looking stains, which she ignored and sat down. The shelves around her were filled with strange books, and she thought she had a pretty good idea from where they came. It was the books that came to the second-hand store, but were for some reason unfit to be sold there. Some of them might even have been rejected from the Knockturn Alley bookstore, but she didn't want to go into that when she sat among them. Who knew what could be inside of them?

In the corner was a pile of old cauldrons, illuminated by the three feeble candles placed strategically around the room. Amelia could finally not contain herself any longer, and shot up from the stool and started reading the titles of the books. It sounded generally boring, _The Common Areas of Habitation of the Minotaur_, _Muscular System of the Basilisk and the Hydra: Differences and Similarities_, and _Unexpected Dissimilarities in the Skeletal Structure of the Giant and the Hippogriff_. Absentmindedly reflecting over how innocent it sounded, she tried to keep her mind on anything but what was going on outside. Though she was a very curious girl, she knew when there were things she actually didn't want to know; and this was one of those occasions.

But, unable of restraining herself, she felt herself being pulled closer and closer to the curtain until she stood with her eyes pressed against the small hole, now only seeing the shadows move across the walls and hear their low voices.

Suddenly, scaring her half to death, she heard Razvan's voice rather loudly.

"You can come out now, Amelia."

For a moment wondering if he thought she had heard anything, she slowly went out from the small room and at the moment she came into the shop, her eyes immediately fixed at Lucius, who turned around and looked at her.

"You have grown," he said and Amelia felt awfully patronised, as she considered herself an equal to Lucius.

"I might have," she said and tried to hide how hurt she actually was.

"Nice seeing you, Razvan, but I have to get going. Charis," he added with a curtly nod and went out into alley with a swish of his long, black cloak.

"I almost forgot," said Razvan suddenly, almost sensing that Amelia wanted something to take her mind of Lucius. "I've got a present for you."

"You have?" asked Amelia curiously and jumped back up on the counter, which was her normal place.

Razvan went behind the counter and went through a few drawers, some of which started hiss and shake when he quickly opened and closed the lid. At last, he produced a small but thick book from a surprisingly quiet box and handed it over to Amelia, who first of all smelt it, as she always did with books. She loved the feeling of old paper under her fingers and the warm smell of ink, and the older the book was, the more distinct its smell was. This once smelt just like Razvan's shop, so she guessed that it had been there forever. On the cover, very formal gold letters spread to the words _The Virtuous Guide of Understanding: Legilimency made easy_.

"Legilimency?" she asked and looked up at Razvan, who positively beamed with pride.

"Yes. I think I was around your age when I started practicing," he said with one of his rare smiles.

"You're a Legilimens?" she asked, though not all that surprised. She eyed the book closer. "Weren't you supposed to hand this on?"

She recognised it after a while; or after reading inside the covers, where she saw the names _Antonin Dolohov, Roland Jugson, Razvan Charis, Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape_.

"How did you get it back from Snape?" she asked and looked almost accusingly at her uncle.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's all taken care of. He didn't need it anymore."

"You mean Snape is a Legilimens?"

"We all are. Or at least the names in the book."

"Isn't Snape supposed to pass this on?"

"How likely do you think it is that Severus would possibly take a first year under his wing?"

"Point taken." She turned the book, looking at it from all possible angles. There was something so tempting about it, it was almost calling out to her. "So you mean I get it?"

"Yup."

"Wasn't Snape supposed to hand it to some other Slytherin or something at least? There are at least three other boys in his year!"

"Listen, do you want the book or not?"

"No, no, I'll take it, I'm just asking!" she said very defensive and pressed the book against her chest.

"Well, then I guess we'll have to send it through Ravenclaw from this day on," said Razvan and sounded almost as though he was passing on his own child.

"Why do you want me to learn Legilimency?" Amelia took the opportunity to ask.

Razvan swallowed. "Though you're not a Slytherin, I really think I should give you at least a chance to learn it."

"You can't teach me?" suggested Amelia half-minded. She was busy eyeing through the pages, trying to find out what the hardest part was.

"I don't think so. I wouldn't even do it if we actually had the time. You learn things you maybe don't want to know about certain people."

"And that's why you want me to learn it?"

"You're not born a Legilimens, are you? No, so then you have to learn," was Razvan's very bad answer to this with a tone that otherwise noted that the conversation was over. "Anyhow, Severus is getting rather good. You can train with him."

"Yes, that would please you, wouldn't it?" she asked with a grin and jumped down from the counter.

"Yes, it would. Very much. You've seen the other Slytherins. No one there has his talent," said Razvan and sounded very much like a grandfather talking about his favourite grandson.

"And you're claiming I do?" said Amelia and snorted. For one, she couldn't say she spent all that much time with Snape, as he was a bit out of place wherever he went. For all she knew, he could be nice (though she knew that the possibility was very low), but to save herself from the constant taunting of Potter, Black, Pettigrew and Lupin, she guessed she would make a point in not socialising with their favourite mark.

"Yes, I think you do. At least on some levels."

Trying not to think too much of what the Gryffindors would do to her if she started hanging out with Snape now that Black had run out from his family, Amelia walked up Knockturn Alley and drifted along the steady stream of last-minute shoppers until she reached the second-hand shop and went straight for bed.


	3. The Beater's Bible

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything. I'm so lonely…

_The Beater's Bible_

'… So I made sure to take the one who was coughing!' said Razvan and shouted with laughter, leaning over the counter.

Amelia laughed as well, but mostly because of Razvan, who wasn't someone you'd expect to laugh that much at his own, very tasteless jokes he insisted on telling his niece. She was sitting on the wooden floor with a heavy book in her lap and a cracked cup of tea on a pile of books next to her. Most of the books had been Razvan's or her mother's, and there was hardly a clean page in them. Her mother's was mostly filled with notes from friends about how boring Professor Binns was (though he had been alive when her mother had had him) or about the cute bloke in front of them. Razvan's, on the other hand, were scribbled with notes on how to manage this or that spell better, or how to get this and that potion to set better.

'Don't you have any notebooks from your school time?' she asked suddenly and slammed the book shut.

'Huh?' asked Razvan, who apparently had still been laughing.

'Parchment, you know, notes and stuff,' said Amelia and crawled up from the floor, brushing dust from her skirt.

'I don't know. Look in the back,' he said and scratched the back of his greying head. 'Did I tell you the one about the goblin and the Durmstrang tart?'

'Just three times…' muttered Amelia, though she couldn't deny that she loved being around her uncle.

She had also met her cat, who lived at Razvan's during the summer, who she had very tastefully named Gatsby. So he was at the moment sitting on the counter, next to Razvan, watching everything that moved in the shop, which, if you looked closely, was a lot of things.

'Shame about Snape, really,' said Razvan suddenly and Amelia looked out from the back room.

'What?' she asked.

'Good wizard that kid,' started Razvan and Amelia had a feeling that this was going to be a long story.

'Then what's a shame?'

'He's half-blood, you know.'

Amelia dropped the pack of old parchments she was holding and they fell down on the ground.

'What?' she snapped and ran out from the small den.

'Didn't you know?' asked Razvan with his usual face; content over having given Amelia some new information most people didn't have.

'He's not, is he?' she asked and looked round-eyed at Razvan.

'Yes, he is. Shame, isn't it?'

'Yes it is…' said Amelia and moved back to the den to gather the parchment she'd dropped.

'Mother was a witch and a damn fine one as well,' he started to explain. 'A few year above me, but still. I really respected her, but then she goes of marrying some muggle… I thought she'd know better. Eileen her name was… Eileen Prince. Good blood, that family… But she was the only child… Shame… Real shame…'

The bell over the door rattled, and she backed a step to get in an angle so she could see who it was through the perfectly placed mirrors she had helped Razvan to set up two years earlier. She saw light-brown hair, a perfect smile and charming grey eyes, and had to think for a minute before she remembered who it was.

'Amos!' she said happily and ran out in the shop, forgetting all about Snape's blood-line.

Amos Diggory played Beater in the Ravenclaw team, and was in the seventh year. He was one of the most popular boys in school, and there was a reason for it. He was very talented and very, very handsome. Perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but actually quite smart when he set his mind to something. One of the most promising talents in the school.

'It's been a while!' said Amos when he saw Amelia come rushing out.

She threw an eye towards Razvan, who looked more than mildly disturbed by the handsome young man. Razvan, though an attractive in another way than, well, most others, did not hold much for people who did look good. And Amos was for him the epitome of what was bad about the world. Amelia herself didn't like people like Amos either, but she liked Amos, because, well… it was Amos Diggory!

'I'll be in the back…' muttered Razvan very disgruntled.

'How did you find me here? You don't seem like someone who'd go down in Knockturn Alley

all by yourself,' asked Amelia and looked around for somewhere to offer him to sit down.

'Really good. I've been training a lot,' he said calmly and leaned against a chest of drawers, which rattled and sent Amos flying to the other side of the room.

'I wouldn't recommend leaning against anything here…' said Amelia and finally found a low stool. She seated herself on the floor; she thought she was already dusty enough.

'As I said… I've been training a lot, you know. Dad bought me a whole Quidditch set for my birthday. How's it going for you?'

Amelia had dreaded the question. 'I haven't been on a broom for the whole summer. I spent it with me dad, and well, I came here yesterday, so I haven't had all that much opportunity.'

'You know, if you don't practice, there's a risk you'll be kicked off the team,' he said in a warning voice.

'Yeah, but you're the captain, right?' asked Amelia and blushed a little.

'Yes, I am, but you are the one who'll be cut if there's anyone better.'

Though Quidditch was very far from her top priority, she did like it. She played Beater together with Amos, a position she'd gotten because she was, in Potter's words, 'a sadistic cow with high threshold of pain, but no flying-abilities whatsoever'. The only reason she had tried out in the first place was because she wanted a chance to cause Potter some serious pain without ending up in detention. Her try-out had been far from smooth. There weren't all that many Ravenclaw students who were up for playing Beater, they were often not too much for the whole violence thing, but as Amelia was (for the whole violence thing) she had tried out. She knew how to fly, there was no question about it, but she was not among the best in the team. Far from it, actually. What had settled it was when she took a Bludger in the back and one in the head without a word. From that day in her third year, she had caused Potter three fractures, a concussion and two black eyes all together.

'I know…' said Amelia and ran her hands through her hair. 'I'll really try to improve, but I've got a lot of other things as well.'

'No, you don't. _I've_ got to worry about my NEWTs, and two of the Chasers have to worry about their OWLs. You don't have anything this year. But I want to keep you on the team, you know, with half the team left last year and all that.'

'They did?' asked Amelia.

'You're not exactly Miss Current Affairs, are you?' asked Amos with a laugh. She hated his laughs, because whenever he laughed _that _way, it was because he'd successfully made fun of someone, and it was mostly on Amelia's account. But whenever he laughed that laugh, you got it almost rubbed in your face exactly why he was the most popular boy in Ravenclaw. 'David Hoskins left last year, so we need a new Keeper, Eddie O'Neil, that Irish son-of-a-bitch, decided that he wouldn't come back to school this year, so we have only two Chasers, and, to top it off, Barty Crouch's dad actually wrote me and said that Barty would play Seeker anymore. Well, that's not definite, is it? Let's face it; his father's been trying to get him OFF the team since he was brought ON!'

'So you are saying you've done nothing than to worry about Quidditch all summer?'

'Pretty much,' answered Amos with a very proud voice.

'How did you find me here, anyways?' asked Amelia, who honestly felt a little insulted by this. He had come all the way to Knockturn Alley, a place he rarely was in, only to inform her that she's bad at Quidditch? She knew that herself, thank you very much.

'I went to the second hand shop first, and your mother told me you were here,' he said, but didn't look the least uncomfortable. But, then again, someone like Amos Diggory very rarely managed to look uncomfortable, they were just there to look pretty and make others feel bad about themselves. Nonetheless, he was very charming and just hard not to like, in spite of all his classic pretty-boy characteristics.

'Well…' started Amelia, really not knowing what to say.

'Yeah, I'd better get going… I have to talk to Charles Branwhite about his broom, and I heard he's staying in the Cauldron.'

'I'll see you in school, won't I? said Amelia and followed Amos to the door. He looked around the shop before smiling a little at Amelia and then he was off again, probably to bug poor Branwhite about buying a better broom. Apparently the old one was too out of shape compared to the other Chasers'.

Razvan came out from the back the moment she had closed the door.

'That pretty boy?' he asked and locked Amelia with his eyes.

'What?' asked Amelia, trying hard to ignore the fact that she knew exactly what her uncle was talking about.

'You could get much better boys that that, you know. He's not worthy you.'

'What are you talking about?' asked Amelia and could even feel how she blushed a little.

'You look at him the same way you look at Lucius, and that's saying something.'

Amelia was now positively purple in her face, and her lips were throbbing madly, as always when she was caught doing something or was nervous.

'What?' she asked in some very badly played innocence.

'Do you think I'm stupid?' he asked and laughed a little. 'It wasn't all that long ago I was your age, and I know exactly what it was like. You should know that you look like you've over-dosed Amortentia whenever he is in the room.'

Amelia was paralysed. She didn't know what to say, or what to do, when it turned out that Razvan had noticed her interest in Malfoy.

She started to stutter very incomprehensibly before she got one word out, 'How?'

'I know I'm old, but I'm not stupid, or blind. I've seen how you look at him, and you look the same way at Diggory. Why?'

'What do you mean "why"?'

'Why do you like Diggory?'

'How can you not like him?' was all Amelia and looked stunned at Razvan.

'Well, I just -'

'I'm not going to discuss this with you!' yelled Amelia, and could hardly keep from laughing at the unbelievable situation.

She stormed out and threw the door shut behind her, running blindly out in the alley.

BANG.

She had run into something, and felt the cobbles in her back, telling her that she'd fallen.

'Look out…' she muttered and sat up with a hand on her forehead to keep her head from spinning. After a moment she realised that she was the one who had been careless, but didn't bother to apologise.

After giving it a minute or two to recuperate, she knew exactly who she had bumped into. She didn't even have to open her eyes, the smell of a thousand different potions was enough to tell her that the boy she had run into was none less than Severus Snape.

He didn't say anything, he just scrambled up from the ground, and Amelia could see that he was wearing the school robes. Not even she was wearing the school robes during summer!

'Watch where you're going…' he muttered and, much to Amelia's surprise, reached out a hand to help her get back to her feet.

As it was a human reflex to grab whatever is handed to you, she took his hand, only to notice that he probably had the most uncomfortable hands ever. Cold and clammy, and very skinny, it felt like holding a scrawny, dead fish. Her first instinct was to let go, but then she'd fall backwards, so she let hi help her up, then she let go of his hand as quickly as possible.

'I didn't see you,' she said quickly, trying to wipe her hand on the back of her skirt without Snape noticing.

'No, of course you didn't,' he said with a gloomy voice and took a deep breath. However, it sounded like there was something in the way, so it sounded more like he was trying to inhale through his nose with a very bad cold at the same time.

It was very hard to notice Snape, and when you finally did, it was very hard not to notice him. Unfortunately, ever since her first year, Razvan had been obsessed with trying to make Amelia and Snape friends, something she wasn't very keen on. Snape might be nice, she had no idea, she didn't know him very well, but there was even a bigger chance of him being a very, very nasty person, which was her first impression of him.

'Going to Razvan's?' asked Amelia and tried to make small-talk, something she soon understood was hopeless. Another question that kept gnawing on her mind was whether or not he had washed his hair at all during the summer, but she decided against it, it wasn't like he didn't get enough of comments about it.

'Yes,' he said in a voice of someone who just explained they were going to be executed.


End file.
